Nov 9, 2009 7:23 pm US/Pacific
SF Marina Home To One Of Many Bay Area Toxic Sites
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) ―
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The San Francisco Marina.
CBS
Along San Francisco's Marina District, underneath the east Marina harbor, lies a toxic burial ground many acres in size, yet invisible to the naked eye. The area is surprising, perhaps, because the cesspool of dangerous contaminants sits amid one of the city's toniest neighborhoods.
During the latter part of the 1800's and early 1900's, the site where the Marina Safeway sits and the boat harbor across the street, was home to a huge power plant with giant gas tanks that could be seen from across the bay.
"We have done a lot of environmental tests down there that tell us this underground soil is pretty toxic," said San Francisco Supervisor Angela Alioto-Pier, who represents the Marina District.
For years, the city and PG&E, which inherited the site decades ago, have been in a legal tangle over who would clean up the toxic marina.
The project could cost into the tens of millions of dollars, and only recently has PG&E said it's willing to do the mitigation work.
"We have been working with San Francisco Rec and Park to come up with a dredging plan," said Matt Nalman with PG&E.
Eventually the Marina will get cleaned up. But many other contaminated areas around the San Francisco Bay are not. Environmentalists agree that among the five worst are three in San Francisco, including the Hunters Point shipyard, one on the Peninsula, a superfund site in West Oakland and two refinery operations in Richmond.
These are just a tiny percentage of contaminated sites Bay Area wide. In some cases the sites are being cleaned up, but for many others there is simply no money or the political will to do it.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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